Danske Bank wants to create playful payment experiences for youths and elderly and people with disabilities. Arla Foods wants to integrate exciting play experiences into school milk for children.

The two-week DesignCamp2018 PLAY - The Design Way is now officially launched! 13 companies and one local government make their company available to 100 students from Design School Kolding University of Southern Denmark Aalborg Universitet and international universities and work with them as they address specific challenges and produce either playful process proposals or playful products. And with only two weeks to embark on one of the greatest design journeys of their lives, the students gathered early Monday morning to a full day of briefings and workshops in Kolding and at the LEGO House in Billund.

The companies will participate and provide input as the students produce new ideas and concepts and show how open-ended and playful methods can drive the development of strategic design and playful products:

”For two intense weeks, the students will work in cross-disciplinary groups and produce either playful process proposals or playful products. The design process involves quick iterations where they process insights and translate these into specific ideas supervised by Design School Kolding’s Play team and an invited task force of hands-on practitioners in the field of play. This will be followed by an exploration of the strategic possibilities and directions facilitated by Designits power team. Finally, this will all be turned into prototypes, which will be presented at an eventful conference with acknowledges keynote speakers,” says Sune Gudiksen, Associate Professor at Design School Kolding.

Conference and Presentations You can join the fun too as the DesignCamp closes with an open conference and student presentations on Friday 2 February. Keynote speakers will be Helle Marie Skovbjerg, Denmark’s first Play Professor and Professor Krystina Castella at Art Center College of Design, Pasadena. Register no later than 29 January

This year’s partner companies

Arla

Danske Bank, IT

EYEBAB

Fredericia Kommune

Givskud Zoo

Ledon A/S

LEGO System A/S

LEGO House

LEGO Education

Nicolai for Børn

Peter Larsen Kaffe

Sprogeriet

Starbucks

OrganisersDesignCamp2018 is organised by the Laboratory for Play & Design at Design School Kolding in collaboration with the University of Southern Denmark, Aalborg University and the innovation network D2i - Design to innovate. The DesignCamp2018 is funded by the Region of Southern Denmark and the EU Social Fund.